


but you had to come along

by orphan_account



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Aromantic, Asexual Character, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-23
Updated: 2012-08-23
Packaged: 2017-11-12 17:12:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/493693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yukio doesn't do romance, doesn't really need it in his life, but for Kise he could make an exception.</p>
            </blockquote>





	but you had to come along

Yukio doesn’t do romance. It’s not that he doesn’t have a chance at it: sometimes girls leave him notes in his footlocker, asking him to meet them on the rooftop after school, and he goes because it seems like the polite thing to do. When they start telling him about their feelings, though, about how they hope he reciprocates, he starts getting flustered and tongue-tied. It’s the same every time. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I don’t feel the same way.” He can’t imagine wanting to kiss these girls, or even to hold hands with them.

To be fair, he can’t imagine wanting to kiss his teammates, either. There was that time in first year when Moriyama invited him to watch a basketball game, and Yukio had accepted, only to find out to his chagrin that it was a date (he wouldn’t have known if Moriyama hadn’t tried to kiss him, which resulted in Yukio leaning back so quickly that he toppled out of his seat. Neither of them ever talks about it). In retrospect, all the times that his other teammates asked him to hang out might have been offers for dates, too, but Yukio turned them all down in favor of practicing basketball or doing homework.

Romance doesn’t really make sense for him. He’s okay without it, despite what his teammates say about the joys of dating. He can go through high school without a sweetheart; the only loss he feels is when his teammates look at him like he’s missing out.

Then he meets Kise, and it’s not like romance suddenly floods his life, but he begins to understand what it is to have someone who means more than everyone else. It happens gradually. Kise drives him up the wall when he first arrives: he’s not as bratty as Yukio expected him to be, but he’s irritatingly confident about everything, and worse, he has a reason for it. Yukio can only watch in disbelief as he replicates every move shown to him at practice, faster and better than the original. If their coach had any reservations about giving him a starting position just because he was part of the Generation of Miracles, they evaporate.

“I can’t believe you’ve only been playing basketball for two years,” he tells Kise when they’re changing in the locker room. “You live up to your reputation.”

“Oh, well, I’m just a quick learner.” Kise looks proud of himself, but also inordinately pleased that Yukio is praising him. “I’m actually not even the best player in the Generation of Miracles.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“It’s true! The others are a lot better, and they’ve been playing for longer, too. I’ve still got a lot to learn.”

Yukio already knows that despite his raw talent, Kise has a lot to improve on. It just surprises Yukio that he would admit it. The honesty with which he does it soothes some of Yukio’s irritation, and he ruffles his hair on the way out of the locker room. “Practice hard,” he calls over his shoulder. “Just because you’re wearing the number seven jersey doesn’t mean you can slack off.”

That’s all it is in the beginning: Kise has potential, and Yukio pushes him to achieve it. At first it’s only for Kaijou’s benefit, but the more he watches Kise play--the more he sees how Kise isn’t just good at basketball but loves it--the more he wants to see Kise succeed in his own right. He’s harder on Kise than anyone else on the team, but Kise takes it all with a smile and runs faster, dunks harder, and gets better with every practice.

The team likes to call Kise “our captain’s little protege,” but their relationship isn’t really like that. Even on the court, when Yukio’s yelling at Kise, they’re partners who trust each other. Off the court, Kise attaches himself to Yukio despite the fact that they’re not in the same year. He waves to Yukio in the hallways and eats lunch in Yukio’s classroom. Yukio doesn’t mind because Kise talks to everyone around him even if Yukio’s not in the mood for conversation, so Yukio can eat his lunch in relative peace and just listen to Kise’s happy chatter about basketball, his modeling job, flowers, and even who’s dating who.

“Isn’t that sort of gossip boring?” he asks Kise once when they’re walking home together.

Kise tilts his head to the side. “No, why would it be?”

“I don’t know, just...” Yukio scratches his cheek, trying to think of words to explain his disinterest. “I don’t get what the big deal about dating is, like holding hands and kissing and stuff. I’ve never wanted to do any of that.”

“Really? I’ve always wanted to do that with the person I like.”

“Oh? Is there some lucky girl who’s caught our ace’s eye?”

Kise laughs and shakes his head. “No, no, it’s not like that. Hey, senpai, how about we get some ice cream on the way home?”

Yukio likes spending time with Kise more than he does with anyone else, but he doesn’t think that it’s anything unusual. Kise talks a lot, but he doesn’t expect Yukio to reciprocate, and Yukio finds his earnestness about every topic imaginable endearing. He wants to make friends with everyone they meet, from the school girls who trail them, giggling, to the owner of the ice cream shop where he insists on dragging Yukio almost every other day. He’s not what Yukio expected at all. It’s not long before Yukio stops thinking of him as part of the Generation of Miracles and starts thinking of him as Kaijou’s ace, and then just as Kise. “Our ace,” he calls him, and not just to see the smile bloom on Kise’s face.

He has no reason to think that Kise means something different to him than other people until the day that Kise invites him to hang out with the other Kaijou members.

“Don’t bother with him,” Moriyama says, shaking his head. “He’s just going to say he has to do extra practice.”

“What? But he has to bond with his team!” Kise latches onto Yukio’s arm. Yukio punches him for being overly familiar, but otherwise doesn’t try to shake him off. “Come on, senpai, please? Just for a little bit! Please, please, please?”

Yukio looks at his team, none of them expecting him to say yes, and then at Kise, who’s practically holding his breath.

“Okay,” he says. “I’ll go. We’re not going to pick up girls, though. That means you, Moriyama.”

“We’re not even going to have to,” Moriyama retorts. “The girls are going to flock after us because of Kise.”

For some reason, the thought bothers Yukio. “I’m going straight home if we’re going to be mobbed by your fangirls, Kise.”

Kise’s almost bouncing up and down. “They won’t. I’ll ask them to give us some space. I’m so glad you’re coming, senpai!”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

They set out together, Kise walking in the middle of the group and Yukio trailing a little behind. Kise’s listening to Moriyama talk about all the cute boys and girls he met that day, nodding at appropriate intervals. Hayakawa says something, as unintelligible as always, so Kise turns to him and asks him to repeat it. It must have been funny, because he throws his head back and laughs. Yukio feels something catch onto his heart and pull. He wants to be closer to Kise right now, close enough for their hands to brush together like they do sometimes when they’re walking home.

“Kasamatsu senpai?” Kise’s stopped walking and turned around to look at him. “What are you doing back there? You should keep up with us!”

Before Yukio can react, Kise reaches out and grabs his hand. “Our captain should walk with us, not behind us.”

Yukio’s had girls grab his hand before when they were confessing, but he’s always pulled away. This time, he doesn’t. He looks at his and Kise’s hands twined together, and realizes that for the first time, he wants this.

“Oh, sorry,” Kise says. “I didn’t mean to--senpai probably doesn’t want me to do this kind of thing.” He loosens his grip.

“Wait.” Yukio holds on. “It’s okay. I don’t mind.”

Kise’s uncertain expression dissolves into a smile. “Really?”

“Don’t make me repeat myself, freshman.”

“What’s this? Looks like Kasamatsu really does have a soft spot for our ace,” Moriyama says. He’s standing with Hayakawa and Kobori, staring at Yukio and Kise. Yukio can’t interpret the mixture of confusion and realization on their faces.

He brushes it aside and marches ahead with Kise’s hand in his. “Are we going or not? I still have homework to do, you know.”

He doesn’t think of it as romance then, or for a while yet. All he knows is that he wants to hold hands with Kise, to see him laugh and listen to him talk; that it’s _because_ this is Kise, who makes more sense than all the notes and rooftop confessions he’s ever gotten.

**Author's Note:**

> I started reading Kasamatsu as ace only a short time ago, so I'm still working out how to write it. I guess you could say that he's gray ace. His feelings for Kise are romantic, but only because it's Kise, and even then conventional romance can be hard for him to do. It's hard to find the language to describe it because I don't even really have the words for my own ace identity, but I wanted to see some of myself in a character that I love, and that's how this fic was born.
> 
> The perfect song for ace!Kasamatsu and Kise (and the inspiration for the title) is "Stray Italian Greyhound," by Vienna Teng.


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